Arabica coffee slips as short-covering rally subsides

05 Apr, 2019

COFFEE

* May arabica coffee fell by 0.3 cents, or 0.3 percent, to 95 cents per lb at 1148 GMT after touching a two-week peak at 96.95 cents on Thursday.

* Prices remained well above the front month's 13-year low of 91.25 cents set on Tuesday.

* A dealer said he did not expect further falls now that the short-covering rally had subsided, saying prices had overshot to the downside thanks to speculative funds.

* Coffee has come under huge pressure as a massive crop in Brazil last year and favourable expectations for this year's crop prompted funds to heavily short the market.

* The Brazilian government is considering offering put options to coffee producers as a way to shore up prices, two people with knowledge of the talks told Reuters.

* The programme, if approved, would give producers the right to sell their crops to the government at a fixed price, setting a floor for prices in the world's largest coffee producer and exporter.

* May robusta coffee was down $9, or 0.6 percent, at $1,439 a tonne.

SUGAR

* May raw sugar was flat at 12.71 cents per lb after reaching a two-week-peak of 12.80 cents on Thursday as crude oil prices firmed.

* Sugar and ethanol trader SCA expects mills in Brazil to earmark 39.5 percent of cane to sugar production in the 2019/20 crop versus 35.3 percent in 2018/19.

* ED&F Man expects Brazil centre-south mills allocating 39.3 percent of cane to sugar production in 2019/20 versus 35.2 percent in 2018/19.

* May white sugar was up $0.60, or 0.2 percent, at $330.60 a tonne.

COCOA

* May London cocoa fell 9 pounds, or 0.5 percent, to 1,798 pounds a tonne.

* May New York cocoa was flat at $2,415 a tonne.

Copyright Reuters, 2019

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